personal: The Osa Peninsula

Due to the tropical storm, Alma our plans for last week had changed some. We stayed in San Jose and had class all day Thursday and Friday (including a mid-term). We ended up going white water rafting that Saturday morning. Rafting was a blast, but I of course got stung while we stopped for lunch. That was a long day and we were up bright and early on Sunday to leave for the Osa Peninsula. I went to bed not feeling great, but I figured I was just worn out from the long day. I was wrong and our 10-12 hour trip to the Osa consisted of multiple stops for me to get off and get sick...mostly on the side of the road. The ride wasn't very smooth and we got to a point where there was a bridge we needed to cross, and the bridge was no longer there. We looked around for another route and we found a bridge that didn't seem sturdy or big enough for our van to cross. All of the students got out while the bus driver and others tried to get it across. There were some difficulties and we ended up needed rocks, wood, and our strong boys to push the bus across the bridge. We then got on a boat that was pretty rough, probably didn't help that I was not feeling well. When we got there we had a wet landing. (We had to put all of our luggage in strong trash bags) The place we camped at was very nice and the people were a lot of fun. The first day we took a boat to another island where we went hiking. When we first crossed we only had water up to our ankles so we took off our hiking shoes...keep this in mind. We hiked for about 3 hours seeing a lot Mccaw (gorgeous birds) howler monkeys (which woke us up while we were sleeping) and several other neat insects, plants, etc. There was even a tree that would kill you within 30 minutes if you were to eat a leaf from it. We went by the water and learned how to open coconuts using trees. So we get back to where we need to cross back over and it does not look familiar. The tides were so high that we had to take whatever we needed off and hold our bags above our heads to cross. The water was up to my shoulders...it was crazy. As I was trying to cross to the other side, I notice something right near me that I swear is an animal...I of course freak out a little and try to turn around and go back to the other side. Everyone is laughing at me assuring me it is just a tree log. One of the guys continued to cross realizing that it is not a tree log. It was in fact a half eaten otter that still had blood streaming from it. This also means that we were going through water where there was a crocodile nearby. SOO SCARY!

The next day we took boats to another island where we went snorkeling. It was pretty fun, but the weather wasn't very great. It was kind of difficult to see things and the sun always makes things better! Every night we would all hang out where we ate and play cards, listen to music, and dance. Once I was feeling better it was a great time, we saw some huge insects that I will post pictures of when I get a chance. The owner even gave me a cute bracelet, but it broke. He kept asking to see my beautiful bracelet but I couldn't tell him, so I told him I had it packed up safely so nothing would happen to it. There were some crazy storms while we were there, but it was a fun experience.